As boiled down from across this great, big globe by no less than editors at National Geographic?

And, by the way, all featured as "Best of the World 2013"?

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That must be some list.

Indeed, it is.

Featured are the world's most exotic locations, some of which we've actually heard of: Crimea; Marseille; Raja Ampat (described as "an emerging island Eden in Indonesia"); Ravenna, Italy; Kyoto, Japan; Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia; Lake Malawi, in the Great Rift Valley of Africa; Quito, Ecuador; Bagan, Upper Burma; the Hudson Valley. ...

Hey, wait a second.

Lake Malawi, Quito, Bagan, the Hudson Valley?

Yes, that's what it says -- the Hudson Valley.

Cool.

It's not that we don't appreciate our home. It's just that, well, the girl next door somehow always does get overlooked.

And, truth be told, it's not every day we think of Lake Malawi, Quito and Bagan while we're motoring through Port Ewen.

But we do love this well-considered shoutout from National Geographic Traveler, including the hip prose positing that "not even Rip Van Winkle could sleep through the cultural clarion of today's Hudson Valley."

("No wonder we keep waking up at 3:30 a.m., Ma. It's not the train, it's the damn cultural clarion, again.")

From that running start, National Geographic Traveler is off to the races extolling our fine valley as "New York's original art show," with touchstones ranging from Pete Seeger, organic farm stands and the Culinary Institute of America to the Hudson River School Art Trail, Storm King Art Center and "wonderfully weird and artsy Woodstock."

It's pretty heady company under the world-famous National Geographic brand, company the Hudson Valley keeps with only three other United States locations -- the Missouri River Breaks of Montana; St. Augustine, Fla., of colonial Spanish heritage; and Memphis, Tenn.

Best of all, we don't have to wander anywhere to enjoy all of the things that put our Hudson Valley on that "Best of the World 2013" list.

Life is good. Now, if only we could get the cultural clarion to pipe down.